Arkansas River access through Royal Gorge still iffy for Royal Gorge Whitewater Festival

By Brandon Hopper

hopperb@canoncitydailyrecord.com

Posted:
06/19/2013 07:44:03 PM MDT

A kayaker goes through the Five Points rapids on the Arkansas River on Tuesday. (Brandon Hopper/Daily Record)

Four events the Royal Gorge Whitewater Festival are scheduled to use the Arkansas River through the Royal Gorge — a section currently closed to all boaters.

The Royal Gorge Fire last week caused destruction in the Royal Gorge Bridge and Park making it unsafe to people underneath. Rob White is the park manager at the Arkansas Headwaters Recreation Area, the agency that decides whether to open the stretch of the river or to leave it closed for safety concerns.

When it's safe to do , White said, a team will assess the situation and see how much cable fell from the park and is sitting in and around the river. Then they'll then come up with a plan for removal. All that, he said, should happen sometime today.

"We're going to give it our best shot at removing all the cables from the river, and if it looks as though we can have it clear no later than 3 p.m. on Friday, then we'll give the approval to run the events associated with Whitewater Festival through the Royal Gorge," White said.

The AHRA doesn't allow commercial boating through the Royal Gorge after 5 p.m., but White said if they do allow the RGWF to use that stretch of river, then it'd be open to commercial boaters beginning Saturday.

They've been able to scout the area using binoculars and when the Royal Gorge Route Railroad went to the area to assess some if its damage, White said.

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"We know it's a tremendous amount of work," he said. "There's quite a bit of cable that's in the river — we know that much — but we don't know exactly where it's at and the best way that we're going to get it out of there."